The Things They Carried Essay Examples

563 words - 2 pages
Chandy Thorn Thorn 1Cynde DelauderEnglish 11130 September 2014"In many respects, Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried concerns the relationship between fiction and the narrator" (Friedlander 1). The story that O'Brien writes is not a true story, however he can relate to it because he was an active participant in Vietnam. Tim O'Brien wrote much more than a war time story. Tim O'Brien wrote a Story, of pain, hardship, love, and the heavy burdens they carried in their hearts, and on there backs.O'Brien talks about the things they carried on their backs. "They carried the standard M-16 gas-operated assault rifle. The weapon weighed 7.5 pounds unloaded…" (O'Brien 640). O'Brien talks
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1581 words - 6 pages
Running Header: The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien 1The Things They Carried by Tim O'BrienENG 1300 W5A2Andrea CarrSouth University OnlineThe Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien "The Things They Carried" is one of several short stories written by Tim O'Brien that brilliantly portrays a squad of young American soldiers in the Vietnam War. Each of the short stories builds on the last but in The Things They Carried the author places focus on how immature boys cope and their transformation into young men and responsible leaders. O'Brien is not a character in the story but the fact that he is fluent with military lingo and conveys great passion and a working knowledge of the military suggests
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1707 words - 7 pages
The Things They Carried, written by Tim O’Brein, is a story told through the eyes of members of a United States Army troop trudging their way through the Vietnamese country side and jungles during the Vietnam War. Each man has a specific job and so they carry specific belongings that they need to fulfill that job as well as a few mementos from home. These men also carry unseen baggage that is all too real to these men, their families and responsibilities back home preying on their minds, the horrors of war, and the stress of the importance of fulfilling their duties to keep then men around them alive.
The soldiers carried the individual items necessary for individual jobs and sentimental
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1000 words - 4 pages
"The Things They Carried," is a fiction story-telling book about the Vietnam War by Tim O'Brien that describes the physical and emotional burdens the men carry not only during their time in Vietnam but also years after leaving the warfront. The book is a series of stories told with O'Brien as the main narrator. O'Brien tells of the journey he takes alongside his unit, revealing his fight for courage and decision to commit to the serving in the war. It is a groundbreaking meditation on war, memory, imagination and the redemptive power of storytelling.
O'Brien describes the variety of encounters him and the Alpha Company experience while in Vietnam. O'Brien also describes the various items
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641 words - 3 pages
The Things They Carried by Tim O'BrienIn the short story The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, the author explores human nature and the emotions that are carried with them. This emotional baggage is represented by the love that a soldier feels towards a girl back home. It is contrasted by the everyday things they carry while at war. Ultimately this story deals with the theme of growing up and taking responsibility.One of the clever aspects of this piece is the way in which the author details the life that the soldiers are living during the time of war. We are constantly told of the things they are carrying in their fight. There are descriptions of ammunition, guns, candy, cigarettes and
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1053 words - 4 pages
Untitled
The Things They Carried
In The Things They Carried O'Brien Challenges such Traditional concepts of war stories such as courage, bravery, heroism and masculinity. Though their painful experiences his characters are burdened by fear shame and guilt... the things they must carry for the rest of their lives.
Bold, brave, strong rugged, heroic, laughing in the face of hardship, adversity and even death. These are the qualities and images which our minds conjure up when thinking about the word `soldier'. However Tim O Brien's novel, `The Things They Carried' tells stories of characters and situations where the concepts of the not so stereotypical
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1095 words - 5 pages
Wars tends to be the matter of historical record and soldiers are considered as emotionless machines just obeying the orders in the war. Nobody cares about the individual soldier who actually fights in a war. "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien is about a soldier who is trying to communicate with civilians and tell them what he went through before and during the war. At times there is recitation of the uninteresting items carried by soldiers and at other times there is an in depth look at the thoughts and feelings of the soldiers as they make their way ahead in the war. The story is not about the physical things the soldiers carried, but rather remembering the emotions
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2145 words - 9 pages
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Huy TranProfessor SantilloENG1102-25124 April, 2014Themes Analysis in "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien."The Things They Carried", written by Tim O'Brien and first published in 1990, is rated one of the best literary work about the Vietnam War. Stretching across the story are Tim's memories about Vietnam and some real events that he and his platoon mates experienced. Jimmy Cross, Rat Kiley, Ted Lavender, Henry Dobbins or Kiowa, members of the Alpha Team, did not only carry their belongings and heavy weapons for the war but also bore something invisible. It might be glorious, but might also be hatred, fearfulness and cowardice. The physical and emotional
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740 words - 3 pages
Vietnam War a war that took many lives. A war that change the people,the nation and our views. In “The Things They Carried” by Tim O'Brien, symbolism is the key into getting the reader understand life behind the line. Tim O'Brien writing give the readers the vivid image through the fact the war has a deeper meaning than one can believe. In this story we see how everyday life through symbols are used in literature writing.
In this short story, O'Brien does not truly following a classical narrative structure. But needless to say the characters are introduced in the beginning of the story by the items they carried with them. One item that is oddly mention in the story is the candy M&M's
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1026 words - 4 pages
Martha's eyes in the rain, but to show determination and to overcome this conflict he does not stop and turn back, but rather he marches on.It was very sad to him, the things men carried inside, for his case his obsession with Martha, was heavier than the detailed descriptive text of the physical items that were used in combat. Jim hides this change by juxtaposing it with his leadership of his platoon. Jim shows righteous behavior by telling his troops to move out and onward. From this point on, he was a changed man as the narrator claims "He would not tolerate laxity. He would show strength" (398). Jim's internal conflict of interest has made him a changed man. He would have to 'carry on' his duties of Lieutenant and thus view Martha as a memory more than as a burden.
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1646 words - 7 pages
Joy Kogawa and Tim O’Brien: two authors that have wielded their mastery of the English language to yield literary masterpieces that reflect not only their own struggles, but the hardships of multitudes around them. In her acclaimed Obasan, Joy Kogawa illustrates the intense discrimination that was faced by Japanese-Canadians during World War 2, and provides many reflective anecdotes to give the reader some insight on her personal situation. Tim O’Brien accomplishes basically the same goal in The Things They Carried by giving the reader many brief stories about his time in the Vietnam War. These two books- though incredibly different on the surface - share a plethora of themes and
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2795 words - 11 pages
After the devastation that World War II left the world, no one wanted to go into another war. Families lost their members, countries lost their dignity, and some soldiers were left with the moments of war forever in their minds. However, the concern that communism was going to spread made Vietnam become the longest war in American History. During this time a lot of young people were anti-war, they were sick of losing people they loved to violence. Though the war still needed to be fought so men became soldiers freely or because they were drafted. In the story “Things They Carried”, soldiers are faced head on with the Vietnam War. Tim O’Brien shows how the men carry the weight of physical
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1515 words - 7 pages
In The Things they carried, Tim O’Brien uses a large list of things a soldier carries. Weather it be a good luck charm, chewing gum, gun/ammunition or recreational drugs. This displays a window in to the emotional burdens that all soldier bear. One major burden for these poor soldier is confronting the tension between reality and fantasy. We see the tension in LT Jimmy Cross with his infatuation for Martha. Each day when the soldier made camp or rest he pulls out the letters from Martha and reads them, making sure that they remain well preserved. Cross also carries a tiny pebble in his mouth that Martha sent him. When Ted Lavender was shot, Cross realized that his love for Martha had led
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755 words - 3 pages
The Vietnamese War was unlike any war the United States had ever been involved in. People were being drafted into it and many of them did not even know what the conflict was about. It was mainly a political conflict where the US strategically, based on political involvement, bombed handpicked locations. It was a war not supported by the American people but carried out to meet hidden agendas of politicians, and hidden by promises to South Vietnam to aid in their struggle.Tim O'Brien's novel The Things They Carried is a novel set during the Vietnamese War. The author and narrator, Tim O'Brien was drafted into the war and survived to tell about it. He wrote this story to "bring back life" to
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1555 words - 7 pages
In Tim O’Brien’s novel, “The Things They Carried,” imagination is seen to be both beneficial and harmful. This novel consists of a story truth and a real truth. Tim O’Brien writes the book about the Vietnam War based primarily on his memory of the war. He does not remember every detail of the war, thus he makes up some false details to make the story seem more interesting. He does not only describe his own experiences, but also describe the experiences of other characters. He wants the readers to be able to feel and understand how he felt during the events of the story; he wants to provoke an emotional truth. O’Brien tries to prove that imagination is not completely a bad thing and that it
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887 words - 4 pages
be a coward, running away from something, that's not what I wanted. So then I made a very big decision to go to the war. I went home and was shipped off. Once I was in Vietnam, I was around things that just made me want to leave even more than I wanted to before. One of my buddies in our company was killed right before my eyes. Seeing things like that are just horrific. This story is one of many that is hard to tell. His name was Curt Lemon. Curt Lemon and Rat Kiley started goofing around with smoke grenades. They made up a game where they would pull out to pin and throw it back and forth to each other. Well one day when they were playing this game, he stepped on a 105 round
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668 words - 3 pages
purposeless life which he is trying to find a meaning for. However at this moment in his life he feels like his life is going nowhere.He starts the story with, "The war was over and there was no place in particular to go." With this statement he implies that he is going nowhere. He states many other things inferring the same thing. He says, "He drove slowly. No hurry, nowhere to go". Another time he says, "Dark was pressing in tight now, and he wished there were somewhere to go."Many times throughout the story he speaks of the people he has lost in his life and about how he once drove around the lake with them. He specifically speaks of two people, Sally and Max. He said, "Back in high
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668 words - 3 pages
purposeless life which he is trying to find a meaning for. However at this moment in his life he feels like his life is going nowhere.He starts the story with, "The war was over and there was no place in particular to go." With this statement he implies that he is going nowhere. He states many other things inferring the same thing. He says, "He drove slowly. No hurry, nowhere to go". Another time he says, "Dark was pressing in tight now, and he wished there were somewhere to go."Many times throughout the story he speaks of the people he has lost in his life and about how he once drove around the lake with them. He specifically speaks of two people, Sally and Max. He said, "Back in high
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981 words - 4 pages
Strength in The Things They Carried
Everybody has to deal with adversity at some point in their lives. The adversity that they go through varies from person to person. For First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, he had to make it through the Vietnam War alive. In the short story, "The Things They Carried," where Cross draws his strength from is somewhat unclear. He seems strong at the beginning of the story, but then again, he also seems to be gaining strength towards the end of the story. This paper shows two different points of view. It discusses whether Jimmy Cross is a stronger person at the beginning of the story or at the end of the story.
One opinion is that First Lieutenant
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602 words - 2 pages
In Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" detailed description and realism were used to capture the audience and draw them into the actual events in the story, allowing them to feel the burden of emotional and physical weight on the characters, who were fighting to preserve their sanity and lives. The vivid detail and realistic narration were only tools used by the author to prepare a story that goes beyond the war in Vietnam, focusing on the other things that soldiers carried - inner thoughts, feelings, and emotions. The story was brought to life by the realistic but disjointed narration of the author, illustrated by returning to the death of Ted Lavender throughout the
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1232 words - 5 pages
O'Brien's The Things They Carried
O’Connor remarks “The Things They Carried” is a short story that is
written “as an experience not an abstraction” and that “the meaning
has been embodied in it”. These quotations are truly pure in
description and interpretation of the short story as the reader, must
look beyond the crude physical properties of the objects and actions
chronicled and focus more upon their hidden meanings and messages.
O’Brien uses the physical characteristics of weight to make an impact
upon the reader to relate with the men. In emphasizing the soldier’s
everyday burden, the reader can easily relate to the situation in
general. As
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1026 words - 4 pages
suffering is usually physical, emotional, psychological, and frequently, death. For the men that do survive death, there is always a price to pay, which is a transformation from what they were before to what they unwillingly must or will become due to the pressures of the war. Moreover, if the grounds for the war are ambiguous and hence soldiers do not comprehend it or acquire a sense of purpose or mission, as was in the Vietnam War, the toll on the human spirit is even greater. Acknowledging this, Tim O'Brien in his vignette, " The Things They Carried," which is about a platoon of soldiers and their experiences and emotions brought by the controversial Vietnam War, shows how soldiers become
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903 words - 4 pages
Analyzing the author Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried", can only demonstrate that it is carefully crafted, detailing in account of a Lieutenant and his men, the time period being right in the middle of the Vietnam war. In most war stories the author spends most of his or her time describing actions and events to the reader, trying to really put the reader "right there" in the middle of everything that is happening. However, O'Brien drifts away from that trend here, hardly describing any events of importance to anyone. Rather, he focuses on the thoughts of the soldiers, the inner feelings, small personal daydreams and strange things that really describe the men. Being out in the
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1315 words - 6 pages
In The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, most of the short stories share the same structure, even though each one is unique in its own way, in terms of content. The story “Speaking of Courage” is special, however, in that it ties two stories together- a post-war story that uses a lake in Iowa as a metaphor for the shit field in a war story. This short story is essential to the rest of the book in the way that it addresses the three most prevalent themes in the book - love, truth, and guilt. It does so by shedding light on how emotionally taxing war is on soldiers through the unique perspective of a soldier who later committed suicide.
Throughout the book, O’Brien clearly mentions stories
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1006 words - 5 pages
The Things They Carried: Essay Prompt Two
Tim O’Brien writes about both the physical objects they carry as well as their emotional burdens. The objects that these soldiers carry serve as a symbolism for what they are carrying in their hearts and minds. The soldiers carry items varying from pantyhose, medicine, tanning oil, and pictures. Jimmy Cross is an inexperienced sophomore in college, he signs up for the Reserve Officers Training Camp because his friends are doing the course. Jimmy Cross doesn’t want anything to do with the war or anything to do with being a leader. The item that Jimmy Cross carries with him are pictures of his classmate named Martha.
The pictures of Martha
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1302 words - 6 pages
them better than other people. The soldiers’ needs, physical and emotional, are shown by the things they carry. They don’t carry things just literally, but also figuratively. Some of the soldiers carry things such as comic books so it’s made more obvious how young they are. In between the things they carry are also good-luck charms “Lieutenant Cross carried his good-luck pebble. Dave Jensen carried a rabbit’s foot. Norman Bowker, ..., carried a thumb...” (12) that shows the soldiers aren’t overly courageous, they’re afraid of the war and death as much as anybody else. They carry many things figuratively, often it’s memories of their girlfriends back home, which in most war stories give soldiers
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718 words - 3 pages
Tim Johnson09-19-14The Things They CarryIn The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien used diction, writing style, and tone while writing the novel which affected the different emotions and brought to the readers. Tim O'Brien carefully used diction while writing the novel, in this passage it can be seen that with his chosen words, it becomes deeper. It can be seen in this passage that he wrote without standard prose, but instead he makes each line its own which making them stand out to the reader. He creates specific moods within the novel and in this passage, giving the reader an idea of what they characters are going through during the time of war. These can all be seen inside a passage from
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1286 words - 5 pages
They carried their reputations. They carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory and dishonor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor (O’Brien P. 369).
The things we carry may define the type of person we are in a broad but effective sense. For example, a construction worker might carry a hammer, a mailman some mail , and a police officer would carry those beautiful pieces of paper we call tickets. In carrying these items, each person may experience a different type of day in the framework of their lives. A
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654 words - 3 pages
THE THINGS THEY CARRIEDIn his book "The Things They Carried," Tim O'Brien describes a group of soldiers marching through Vietnam. He does this by describing the items that each of them carries with him during the march. The things that the soldiers carry with them are both tangible and intangible items and what these things are depends upon the individual soldier. They carry the basic necessities for survival and the bare minimum to make life as livable as possible. They also carry memories and fears. The weight of these abstract items is as real as that of any physical ones, and unlike those physical objects, they are not so easily cast away.Throughout the story, O'Brien alternates between
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783 words - 3 pages
Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" (reprinted in Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs, Literature and an Introduction to Reading and Writing, Sixth edition. [Upper Saddle River and Prentice-Hall, 2001] 77-88) is centered on the realism of the types of things the soldiers in the Vietnam War carried. The realism of all the physical and emotional, tangible and intangible things they carried are vividly described throughout the entire story. The realism of the weights of many different tangible objects that are physically carried and the realism of the emotional, intangible items and the unpredictability of their surroundings brings this story to life. The presentation of realism is
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1056 words - 5 pages
James Joyce with “Araby”, and Timmy O’Brien with “The Things They Carried” both demonstrated similar characteristic traits of the narrators. The main characters of these short stories both have a deep crush on someone. However, “Araby” and “The Things They Carried” take place in very different places from each other. “Araby” has the main setting in a neighborhood while “The Things They Carried” was at war in Vietnam. The stories take place in different places from each other, but both authors had the same idea when writing their ideas of the characters personality traits.
The narrators of the two short stories, “Araby” and “The Things They Carried” both present their protagonist to feel
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860 words - 4 pages
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is a novel written about his time in the Vietnam War. In the first chapter, the narrator goes over what things the soldiers carried with them. There were things ranging from a picture and a love note, to marijuana, to a pocketknife, and a bible. But they did not just carry physical items. The soldiers also carried burdens, emotions, and memories as well. Woodstock was a place where all of the burdens and other things carried by soldiers like them could be lifted off their shoulders.
Woodstock was a “monumental music festival that changed the world” in 1969. It was a huge gathering of almost half of a million people who were united by peace, love
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1115 words - 4 pages
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
“The Things They Carried” was a story about soldiers caught in the confusion of the Vietnam War. There are a lot of apparent themes that are dealt with when writing a story about war, especially about death. I enjoyed reading this story; however there were some things about it that I was concerned about. I would like to discuss the author’s style of writing, his meaning of the title “The Things They Carried” and the way the author and his characters deal with death. This story was written with a variety of styles, and it was in a non-traditional format. The main style seems to be a third person, limited omniscient story. However, this story also
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1110 words - 5 pages
1. How does O’Brien use The Things They Carried to cope with the psychological impact of his experience in the war?
In “The Things They Carried” Tim O’Brien uses this story as a coping mechanism; to tell part of his stories and others that are fiction from the Vietnamese War. This is shown by using a fictions character’s voice, deeper meaning in what soldier’s carried, motivation in decision making, telling a war story, becoming a new person and the outcome of a war in one person. Tim O’ Brien uses a psychological approach to tell his sorrows, and some happiness from his stories from the war. Each part, each story is supposed to represent a deeper meaning on how O’Brien dealt
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1009 words - 5 pages
In “The Things They Carried,” Tim O’Brien brings to light the effects of war on soldiers, both physically and psychologically. The title of the story would lead the reader to believe the story is only about the provisions and apparatus a soldier would physically carry into war. After reading the entire story, it becomes evident that there are many burdens seen and unseen that soldiers face during times of war.
In this story, O’Brien uses motif by describing the items the soldiers physically carry while at war which embody the soldier’s state of mind. One example of a motif is at the beginning of the story when First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is introduced. The author describes the letters
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651 words - 3 pages
Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” is the first story in a collection about the Alpha Company, led by First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross during the Vietnam War. The platoon is deployed near Than Khe, an area filled with dense jungle and unrelenting rain where the men must carry or “hump” an unspeakable amount of weight both literal and emotional to survive. The narrator, O’Brien, is one of the soldiers, and he distinguishes one soldier from another with a vivid description of what each one must, and chooses to carry in order to survive war. The seventeen men in this troop are tasked with a search and destroy mission inside tunnel complexes south of Chu Lai. While Lee Strunk is in
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543 words - 3 pages
Perception After the FactTim O'Brian's short story "The Things They Carried" is a description of military equipment that ground soldiers carried during the Vietnam War. O'Brian provides great detail about each piece of equipment including each item's purpose, and when it was used. To more clearly illustrate the challenge faced by the soldiers and the equipment they used, the story follows a plot about a platoon of men lead by First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. In the climax of the story, one of Cross's men, Ted Lavender, wandered into the woods alone (against standard orders) and got shot in the head. Cross then faced feelings of guilt that perhaps Lavender's death was his own fault. This
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1500 words - 6 pages
The Things They Carried
Tim O’Brien
This work of art is a war story, with love, tragedy and personal responsibility, giving details of what one carries, survives and ponders during events that take place out of our control. The Thing Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien depicts human beings just like us that don’t get a choice of what happens around us but how to survive with the things we hold dear that help us make it through. It also shares with us the fear, risk and aftermath of the death of one of their men and the personal responsibility the narrator feels as the loss of one of the men under his care.
The setting of the story is integral as it takes place in the village of Than
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793 words - 4 pages
Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” is about the famous Vietnam War. The book includes many stories which does not require to read the chapters in chronological order. O'Brien was drafted in the war in 1968, which was the year the war peaked. O’Brien was set for life with scholarships from Harvard. He didn’t believe in the war which made fighting the war that much harder. O’Brien includes stories from before, during, and after the war; however he doesn’t write the story with the “before, during, and after” layout. He writes the novel in “ during, before,during, after, before,...” layout. He includes many characters in his novel however only a few from his platoon are included
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883 words - 4 pages
Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" presents the central idea that amongst society, it is normal to react to atypical situations in an atypical way. Jimmy Cross, O'Brien's protagonist, was developed to exemplify this atypical reaction. Cross allows the reader to believe and appreciate "the things they carried" as well as creating an extended metaphor.O'Brien begins his work describing the care that Lieutenant Cross has for the letters he carries from a girl named Martha, from back home. O'Brien writes, "In the late afternoon, after a day's march he would dig his foxhole, wash his hands under a canteen, unwrap the letters, hold them with the tips of his fingers, and spend the last hour
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949 words - 4 pages
In The Things They Carried, there are many emotional burdens that each solider has to withstand. These burdens are, for the most part, physically present in everyday life as a soldier, while others, like the love of someone back home, may not be as physically noticeable. The book follows the life of Lt. Jimmy Cross, the leader of a regiment fighting during the Vietnam War.
The Vietnam War was perceived as a terrible time of slaughter, guerilla warfare, and protests of peace on the home front. Throughout The Vietnam War, the United States helped fight alongside the Southern Vietnamese army, whose ultimate goal was to over throw the Communist Northern Vietnamese government and hopefully
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807 words - 4 pages
Truths are concepts that are not simply recognized, but that are to be discovered or created. One person's truth may be seen by another as a lie. What is the difference between an unnoticed myth and an unrecognized truth? The difference between the two lies within the eye of the beholder. For Tim O'Brien, the author and narrator of The Things They Carried, truth equals what the reader thinks happened and what really happened. Whether or not it actually happened does not matter; something can happen and not be true. In The Things They Carried, “Good Form”, “Dulce et Decorum Est,” and as well as “The War Prayer,” the truth may or may not be involved; truth is what you believe it to be.
The
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1349 words - 5 pages
The idea of love is very complex and can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Both “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien and “Araby” by James Joyce portray the lives of two individuals who are in love. “The Things They Carried” is about a young lieutenant named Jimmy Cross during the Vietnam War. Lieutenant Cross was incapable of focusing on the war because of his constant thoughts of the girl he loved, Martha. “Araby” is about a boy who is infatuated with a girl he has never had a conversation with. Although both protagonists in “The Things They Carried” and “Araby” eventually realize that the girls they loved didn’t feel the same way about them, Lieutenant Cross tried to move on by
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1826 words - 7 pages
The War at Home
The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, transports the reader into the minds of veterans of the Vietnam conflict. The Vietnam War dramatically changed Tim O’Brien and his comrades, making their return home a turbulent and difficult transition. The study, titled, The War at Home: Effects of Vietnam-Era Military Service on Post-War Household Stability, uses the draft lottery as a “natural experiment” on the general male population. The purpose of the NBER (National Bureau of Economic Research) study is to determine the psychological effects of the Vietnam War on its veterans. In order to do this, they tested four conditions, marital stability, residential stability, housing
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1045 words - 5 pages
In the book The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien uses many themes to help draw connections between the book and the reader. O’Brien’s “On The Rainy River” chapter contains countless motifs that make this chapter so compelling. “On The Rainy River” describes his decision whether to enter the draft or to flee to Canada where he would not get condemned. The main theme in this chapter is embarrassment. First Lieutenant Tim O’Brien goes insane from the embarrassment he would face if he did not enter the draft.
Tim O’Brien finds himself staring at his draft notice on June 17, 1968. He was confused and flustered. O’Brien does not know how or why he got selected for the draft. All he knew was
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1497 words - 6 pages
Tim O’Brien wrote the novel The Things They Carried in 1990, twenty years after the war in Vietnam.In the novel,Obrien takes us through the life of many soliders by telling stories that do not go in chronical order. In doing so we get to see the physical and mental things the soldiers carry throughout the war in Vietnam.Yet the novel is more than just a description of a particular war. In the things they carried Tim O’Brien develops the characters in the book slowly, to show the gradual effect war has on a person. O’Brien shows this by exploring the life of Henry Dobbins, and Norman Bowker.
Anger can be a cover up for guilt, shame, and vulnerability in the book O’Brien shows us these
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1114 words - 4 pages
theme introduces in chapter one is the lost of innocent. The Vietnam War both defiles and terminates the innocence of those soldiers who participated in the war. Most of the soldiers in Vietnam War were young, not even twenty. Nevertheless, Tim O’Brien relentless points out that although they are young, they are killers when commanded. Many of the soldiers had to give up their innocence and become men immediately during the war. Other themes that emerge in chapter one is the sexual yarning for females. In addition with fighting Vietcong, soldiers had to endure living without any females around; which cause a lot of anxiety on them.
In the novel The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien’s
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1041 words - 4 pages
In Tim O?Brien?s The Things They Carried, O?Brien uses a series of vignettes to tell about his times during the Vietnam War. Using this style, there was not a continuous plot because every chapter had a new plot. This made the book very hard to read. In this essay, I will use some example chapters such as ?The Dentist? and ?The Ghost Soldiers? to explore key parts of the book such as the changing plot, the lack of characterization, and O?Brien?s interesting.This book was something that I have never seen before, a collection of short stories about one main idea. As I read this book, I noticed that the author was trying to tell a lot of different stories about the main idea to get his point
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1913 words - 8 pages
Tim O’Brien, the author of many war novels and short stories such as The Things They Carried, is a worldly man whose many influences include his love of learning, his special bond with his family and his experiences during the Vietnam War. Tim’s unique style of writing, known as verisimilitude or blending of fiction and non-fiction, lends itself to stories of an almost autobiographical nature, however Tim makes changes to make the writing more interesting. Tim uses the aptly names character of Tim O’Brien to express the connections of himself and his character namesake. Over the course of the many short stories in The Things They Carried O’Brien directly and indirectly compares many
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628 words - 3 pages
Tim O’Brien’s, The Things they Carried is a riveting tale of struggle and sacrifice, self indulgence and self pity, and the intrapersonal battles that reeked havoc on even the most battle tested soldiers. O’Brien is able to express these ideas through eloquent writing and descriptive language that makes the reader feel as if he were there. The struggle to avoid cowardice is a prevailing idea in all of O’Brien’s stories.
In “On the Rainy River”, O’Brien writes of intrapersonal struggle in its most profound form. The gripping torture of indecision seemed to paralyze Lt. Jimmy Cross in every move he made. Fear is what kept him away from the war, and fear is what
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